The Roots of the Military-Political Crises in Côte d Ivoire

Transcription

1 RESEARCH REPORT NO. 128 The Roots of the Military-Political Crises in Côte d Ivoire FRANCIS AKINDÈS Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, Uppsala 2004

2 I thank Anne-Edith Kouassigan for the revision of the translation of this paper. Francis Akindès This is a report from the Institute s research programme Post-Conflict Transition, the State and Civil Society in Africa, coordinated by Dr Ebrima Sall. Dr Akindès contribution was originally presented to a conference in Dakar, May 2003 on Identity and the Negotiation of National Belonging in West Africa: Reflections on the Côte d Ivoire Crisis, arranged by the Institute. Indexing terms Citizenship Civil war Coup d état Ethnicity Front Populaire Ivorien Houphouetism Political development Rassemblement de Républicains Côte d Ivoire Language checking: Peter Colenbrander ISSN ISBN the author and Nordiska Afrikainstitutet, 2004 Printed in Sweden by Elanders Infologistics Väst AB, Göteborg 2004

3 Contents Introduction CHAPTER 1 The Three Parameters of the Houphouët Boigny Compromise Deliberate and centralised openness policy to the outside world Philosophy of the peanut roasters Paternalistic management of social diversity CHAPTER 2 Houphouetism Shows Signs of Wear and Tear under Democratisation Confronting the issues: the political class and the criteria for political representation and legitimacy Ivoirité under Bédié, or the selective function of an ideology General Gueï s variable-geometry Houphouetism The RDR, or Houphouetism the wrong way round The FPI, or the theoretical expression radical schism Immigration and its politicisation CHAPTER 3 The Problematic of Ivoirité and the Meaning of History in Côte d Ivoire The social and political construction of Ivoirité Ideological justification Political justification Economic justification The constitution and ethno-nationalism Military coups d état as therapy for Ivoirité? CHAPTER 4 The Course of History, or the Need for the Invention of Another Social Contract Alassane Dramane Ouattarra (ADO): symbol of the reality underlying the question of being a national An alternative to slice citizenship Bibliography

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5 Introduction After thirty-nine years of political stability, the first military coup d état in the political annals of Côte d Ivoire took place on 24 December Ten months later, in October 2000, the country experienced two shocks. The first was a clash between government forces on the one hand, and, on the other, civilians who were resolved to impose the will of the majority in the elections that had been manipulated to the benefit of the putschist general, Robert Gueï, candidate to his own succession. The second, and rather more unusual, shock centred on acts of barbarity unleashed during the violent clashes between the militants in the two main opposition parties, the Front Populaire Ivoirien (FPI), backed by a fringe of the gendarmerie, and Alassane Ouattara s Rassemblement des Républicains (RDR). It is difficult not to see the atrocities resulting from this clash as anything but a thinly veiled inter-ethnic showdown. These acts of violence, which left their mark on people s minds, led to the discovery, two days later, of a mass grave containing 57 bodies. Following the invalidation of Alassane Dramane Ouattara s candidature in the general election, there was a further outbreak of violence on 4 and 5 December 2000, following a clash between the riot police and RDR militants, the latter shouting the slogan, Enough is enough! ( Trop c est trop ). The outcome was twenty dead. Last but not least, two years after the October 2000 elections that ushered Laurent Gbagbo into power, Côte d Ivoire once again experienced a mutiny that developed into armed conflict (Banégas and Losch, 2002). Three rebellions followed in quick succession, led by MPCI, 2 MPIGO, 3 and MJP 4 and covered two-thirds of the country. 5 The socio-political crisis in Côte d Ivoire can thus be defined as the sum total of the events that have jeopardised the continuity of the state and social order, and broken the relatively long period of political stability in a country that has long been considered a model. The primary aim of this essay is to understand the meaning and significance of this socio-political crisis. First, our theory concerning the significance of the social and political disorder following the long period of political stability is that the political disorder indicates the challenges arising from Houphouët 1. McGowan and Johnson (1986) have focused on the frequency of coups d état in African countries after decolonisation. Between 1 January 1956 and 31 December 1985, there were 60 coups in 45 sub-saharan African countries. Sudan and Ghana hold the record, with 6 and 5 coups respectively. 2. Mouvement Patriotique de Côte d Ivoire Côte d Ivoire Patriotic Movement. 3. Mouvement Populaire Ivoirien du Grand Ouest Ivorian Popular Movement of the Great West. 4. Mouvement pour la Justice et la Paix Movement for Justice and Peace. 5. See the special file on the war in Côte d Ivoire (Politique Africaine, 89, 2003). 5

6 Francis Akindès Boigny s inclination to compromise prematurely with hyperglobalisation through his model of compromise, which had been in crisis since the early 1990s, and from an imposed democratisation process. Second, we need to focus on ivoirité or Ivoirité. We analyse this to be a specific expression of the reinvention of a collective Ivorian persona, in reaction to the effect of more than three decades of economic openness, which had served to neutralise the expression of any specific identity. Third, the compromise represented by adherence to free trade and the market economy brought about internal contractions and contradictions that forced the socio-political system to again endow political debate with a tribal tone, and to define new rules of access to increasingly scarce resources. Finally, what meaning can be found in the escalation of violence and its modes of justification during this socio-political crisis? Recurrent military coups in Côte d Ivoire signify the delegitimation of the regulatory models constructed on the tontine model, 1 and point to the need to renew the political grammar and associated modalities of socio-political regulation around as yet to be determined integrating principles. 1. Tontines are small rotating savings and credit associations or groups, whose members make regular monetary contributions, all of which is given in turn to the members. 6

7 CHAPTER 1 The Three Parameters of the Houphouët Boigny Compromise It is impossible to understand the present Ivorian political compromise without referring to the ideological pillars associated with Félix Houphouët Boigny s thirtythree year political rule: his charismatic figure was a determining factor in the orientation of political praxis and thought in the country. He left his mark on the destiny of Côte d Ivoire by leading it to a negotiated independence in 1960 and by remaining as its leader until his death in Houphouët Boigny left behind a political legacy, a leadership style, or rather a form of political engineering, known as Houphouetism, which has been variously assessed (Amondji, 1984 and 1988; Bakary, 1992; Siriex, 1987; Toungara, 1990; Widner, 1994; Diarra, 1997; Koné, 2003). Many political actors within the Ivorian political class, whether former colleagues or not of the man who personified this philosophy, claimed to be Houphouetists during his lifetime and after his death. But, in the view of these adherents, this political philosophy can be succinctly expressed as nothing more than the culture of dialogue and peace as advocated by the father of the nation. Houphouetism, however, is best understood as a set of structuring principles and practices interpreted in various ways, which function as a system of reference and a political culture that is socially recognised but is not conceptualised. There was no escaping it, not even by General Robert Gueï, who became leader of the CNSP (Comité National de Salut Public) after the coup of 24 December 1999: 1 A pure product of Houphouetism, he also claimed to be a follower. Understanding the political change that is under way is bound to involve an a posteriori deconstruction of Houphouetism, this catch-all movement that is both mode of socio-political regulation and formalised ideology. But as an ideology, Houphouetism imperceptibly structured political habits before the onset of the crisis. Our remarks are not intended to pass judgment on it. Instead, we wish to provide a phenomenological interpretation of Houphouetism in order to shed light on the issues of Ivoirité and the ethno-nationalist rhetoric that emerged from the melting pot of democratisation, to the point of imbuing the spirit of the second republic and becoming a source of social tension and even deadly conflict. As political architecture, Houphouetism is a social and political construction built on a certain colonial ethnology and the process of inventing the political in 1. Following the coup d état on 24 December, General Robert Gueï became the head of the Comité National de Salut Public (CNSP), which in turn formed two transitional governments over a period of ten months. 7

8 Francis Akindès Côte d Ivoire. As objective reality, its material form is a politico-economic complex (Fauré, 1982; Losch, 1999) within which a culture has developed through political interactions, a culture that is shared by and articulated around three parameters whose political effectiveness is entirely dependent on their synergy. Deliberate and centralised openness policy to the outside world After independence, Felix Houphouët Boigny inherited the colonial policy of Ivorian and country-wide regional planning and the mechanisms for this purpose. 1 The policy of vigorous agricultural development, coupled with the concentration of foreign capital since the colonial period, led to Côte d Ivoire s becoming a subregional economic pole that attracted other factors of production, such as subregional labour, capital, and all kinds of expertise. The settlers developed the coastal area (Port-Bouêt, Grand-Bassam), built wharfs and developed some transport and medical infrastructure, particularly in the southeast of the country; and encouraged the development of export-oriented agriculture, based at the outset on palm oil and rubber, coffee and cocoa. Successive waves of economic migration 2 satisfied the growing need for human resources on the many building sites in the lower Côte d Ivoire. Between 1920 and 1940, this labour market was built on a mixture of both voluntary workers and those compulsorily requisitioned in Upper Volta and brought to Côte d Ivoire (Asiwaju, 1976; Cordell and Gregory, 1982; Balac, 1997; Blion and Bredeloup, 1997; Touré et al., 1993; Zongo, 2001). Special subsidies were granted to the railway company to transport the labour, free of charge, to the south of Côte d Ivoire. There was tacit agreement of the inter-professional trade unions of the employers in Côte d Ivoire and the traditional chiefs in Upper Volta to ensure the free supply of this labour (Nana, 1993). It should be noted that Upper Volta was an integral part of Côte d Ivoire until After independence, Houphouët Boigny s policy of openness was nothing but the continuation of the colonial development policy for the country. His choice, though not without a discrete element of nationalism, 3 was for opening up the Ivorian economy to the outside world, and was given concrete expression in a particularly attractive investment code. Thus, he opted for political dependency that 1. On this subject, see O. Dembélé s (2002) spatial, ecological, and territorial analysis set in a historical context. 2. Bierwirth (1997) explains how, between 1925 and 1945, the Lebanese community wove themselves into this emerging economic fabric. 3. Before independence, while Houphouët Boigny considered this opening-up essential, he was nonetheless conscious of the need to protect national interests. The Ivoirian historian Tiémoko Coulibaly (2000) provides confirmatory evidence. He links the violent attacks in 1958 on people from Dahomey, accused of holding prestigious posts in education, with Houphouët Boigny s encouragement of the belief that foreigners were exploiting the wealth of the Ivorian colony at the expense of Ivorians, and with his ultra-nationalist campaign to counter the project for a federation. See also Iheduru (1994) on Houphouët Boigny s nationalism. 8

9 The Roots of the Military-Political Crises in Côte d Ivoire contrasted sharply with the socialism that became the fashion in most newly independent African countries. Through his atypical choice of post-independence economic dependence, he hoped to derive political and economic advantages in terms of personal prestige and sub-regional leadership. His particularly opportunistic form of political philosophy resulted in the concentration in Côte d Ivoire of capital and manpower that originated primarily in the West-African sub-region. 1 Houphouët Boigny s pragmatism undoubtedly bore fruit. Right up to the first half of the 1980s, Côte d Ivoire consistently experienced an annual growth rate in GNP of more than 7%, a rate comparable to high-growth countries like Japan, Korea, and Brazil (Fauré, 1982:45). At the same time, and concurrent with the spread of official or clandestine recruitment of workers from Volta, there was a growing demand for skilled labour in the tertiary sector and, later, the industrial sector (Touré et al., 1993). Numerous nationals from Mali, Guinea, Benin, and Togo responded to this demand in the form of massive and spontaneous immigration. While in the colonial period the motives for migration were mainly economic, after the granting of independence, labour migration increased as a result of the economic euphoria of the 1970s and 1980s. A factor that contributed to this flow of people towards Côte d Ivoire was the political instability in neighbouring countries (Burkina Faso, Benin, Mali, Niger, Togo) and, above all, the agro-climatic uncertainties in the countries of the hinterland (Mali, Burkina Faso, Niger). Attracted by the possibility of agricultural work, whether paid or not, the people of the Sahel made their way to Côte d Ivoire and settled in regions with the greatest agro-economic potential. The 1998 census shows that the Ivorian regions with the highest rates of immigration are Sud-Comoé (25%), Bas-Sassandra (24.7%), Moyen-Cavally (22.4%), Moyen-Comoé (22.1%), and Haut-Sassandra (17.6%). As these figures show, in four of these regions international immigrants constituted more than onefifth of the population. The common characteristic of these regions is that they are all in the forest zone. The coastal migrants tend to be concentrated in the region of the lagoons, where Abidjan is situated. This region, home to 3,733,413 inhabitants, of whom 622,372 are international migrants, has more opportunities for employment and selfemployment than elsewhere. The majority of the migrants there are from the coastal countries and are more interested in trade and services than agriculture. Thus, the migratory movements towards Côte d Ivoire gained momentum, in particular following the socio-political and economic crises in Ghana and Nigeria, which occurred in 1970 and 1980 respectively. After neighbouring countries gained 1. In certain respects, the effects of Houphouetism were comparable to Pan-Africanism, but not identical. In Houphouët Boigny s thinking, the logic of maximising the sub-regional labour force as a basis for a solid Ivorian economy was uppermost, rather than the idea of an Africa that would be strengthened by the unity of its components, the view of one of his political competitors, Kwame Nkrumah. 9

10 Francis Akindès independence, Côte d Ivoire, with an annual population growth rate of 4%, became the main host country in the region, replacing Ghana and Nigeria, which till then, given their post-colonial prosperity, had been the two prime magnets for immigration. Given the economic dimension of these migrations, we can assume that the migrant earnings transferred from Côte d Ivoire to neighbouring countries were of considerable size and significance, and posed problems. According to the last census in 1998, the Ivorian population of 15,366,672 inhabitants included 26.03% immigrants, distributed as follows: Table 1. Distribution of the foreign population by country of origin in different population censuses and from the migrant survey Country % % % totals % Burkina Faso ,238, Mali , Guinea , Ghana , Benin , Togo , Senegal , Mauritania , Nigeria , Other Africa , Non-Africa , Not declared , Total ,000, Numbers 1,474,469 3,039,037 3,310,000 4,000,047 Along with the official and/or clandestine recruitment of workers from Volta, we also observe the immigration of numerous nationals from Mali, Niger, Guinea, Ghana, Togo, and Benin. These economic migrations that lead to long-term settlement allow us to predict that the natural outcome will be an intermixing of ethnic groups, an intermixing with highly topical political consequences in Côte d Ivoire today. The end result of Côte d Ivoire s capitalist option and specialisation in export products such as coffee, cocoa, and wood, to whose production migrants contributed considerably, was that the country entered the circuit of international trade. The outcome, as Fauré noted (1982:34), contrary to what then current third-world ideology hastily proclaimed, was that Côte d Ivoire s deliberate maintaining of dependency does not lead uniquely to catastrophes, or economic and social monstrosities. Despite the unequal relations, there was still room for manoeuvre, slight though this may have been. Proof of this was the Ivorian strategy, despite its limits, of acquiring holdings in the social capital of foreign firms after the beginning of the 1970s, as well as the policy of Ivorianising executives (Chevassu, 1997) or certain 10

11 The Roots of the Military-Political Crises in Côte d Ivoire key economic sectors (De Miras, 1982). The unusual Ivorian economic policy of openness to the outside world created wealth. Notably, between 1975 and 1977, aided by the favourable economic situation (war in Angola, frost in Brazil, stagnant production in competing African countries) and of the meteoric rise in prices for its main exports, Côte d Ivoire s performance was unequalled within its sub-region. This outcome for the political and economic architecture strengthened Houphouët Boigny s political aura abroad and in the eyes of his compatriots, and constituted a powerful instrument for the paternalistic regulation of the socio-political space, thus ensuring a degree of stability for the political system. Despite the drawbacks of the policy of openness to the outside world, especially given the modern flavour of structural adjustment, Houphouët Boigny remained attached to this principle and sang its praises till the end of his days, even if he was aware of the need to refocus economic and financial interests in a more national direction (Fauré, 1990:77). From his point of view, one way to implement this rapidly was to constitute a class of peanut roasters capable of becoming a private sector middle class in his state. Philosophy of the peanut roasters During the first two decades of independence, Houphouët Boigny set up a carefully considered system of political patronage, combined with a system of patrimonialism. The clear aim was to create a national bourgeoisie capable of being transformed into a class of local investors and entrepreneurs. The multiplication of parastatal bodies (Sode, EPN, SEM) was a powerful instrument for regulating a political clientele. The para-public sector was the source of Ivorian patrimonialism, the basis of which was defined by Houphouët Boigny in a famous parable: Don t look too closely at a peanut-roaster s mouth. This African parable is only meaningful in the context of specific attributes of political power in Africa, in particular Côte d Ivoire. Roasting peanuts presumes that, at some point in the process, the cook tastes them for salt. Symbolically, the relationship between the act of roasting and tasting relates to the privilege of the roaster in belonging to a select circle of political clientele who benefit from an unequal but socially recognised distribution by the mere fact of belonging to this group. The mouth here refers to the logic of mastication that is strongly present in the social representation of the exercise of political power in Africa. In other words, it is a legitimation of the prevarication and the primitive accumulation specific to Côte d Ivoire. Hence, for President Houphouët Boigny it was a question of creating a state bourgeoisie. This social fringe did emerge through the patron-state at the turn of the 1970s. In the course of the 1970s and 1980s, De Miras (1982:212) observed that a high-level administrative class was present in management, decision-making, and organisational posts, and prospered through parallel rather than clandestine ways and means of tapping into 11

12 Francis Akindès resources. The Grand Master justified this patrimonial economy or the fast enrichment machinery by reference to the urgent need to constitute a class of substitute investors in an Ivorian economy hitherto dominated by foreign, in particular French, capital. Against the background of overlapping state, nation and one-party system and osmosis between public and private property, the chosen members of this political caste, all members of the single party, PDCI (Parti Démocratique de Côte d Ivoire) were characterised by huge fortunes accumulated under the political umbrella and by conspicuous consumption. Despite the crisis of the patrimonial system, 1 the philosophy of the peanut roaster helped structure the scheme of political regulation, which was itself forced to slim down because of the crisis in public finance in the 1980s. This whole socio-political scaffolding is based on a special form of management of social diversity, which is equally paradigmatic. Paternalistic management of social diversity Côte d Ivoire is home to a mosaic of over sixty ethnic groups, which, in turn, are grouped into four major linguistic families: the Mandés (Malinké, Dan, Kwéni); the people from Volta, usually known today as the Gur (Senoufos, Koulango, Lobi); the Krous (Wê, Bété, Dida Bakwé, Néyo); and the Kwas or the Akan group (Agni, Baoulé, Abron, Alladian, Avikam and the Lagoon ethnic groups). Houphouët Boigny was of Akan origin, and he based his power on the myth of the higher meaning of the state to the specific ethnic group to which he belonged. According to Memel Foté, this myth rests on the dual foundation of the ethnocentric ideology of the State and the aristocratic ideology of the ethnic group. Not only does this myth tend to justify the sources of power that considers itself to be charismatic, but it is also the basis of the legitimacy of President Houphouët to command others. It has become the ideological cornerstone of Houphetist management of social diversity. 2 According to Memel Foté, the characteristic of this myth is that it is not enshrined in formal and written political representations. Instead, it is informal and oral and can only be understood by an anthropological survey. It has structured the social image and nurtured the system of social representation of power in Côte d Ivoire. The sources of this legitimating myth are to be found in a pseudo-scientific colonial legacy ranking the races on the basis of the existence of the state, and the development of writing and of books. Between the Mandé and those assimilated to them, who are at the top of the hierarchy, and the Krous, who are at the bottom, we have the Akan in the middle. This myth comes primarily from the self-serving rewriting of history during the period of decolonisation and after independence by an Akan 1. On the transformations of Ivoirian patrimonialism, see Contamin and Fauré (1990:219 30). 2. Chappell (1989) provides as informative study of the selective management of ethnicity by Houphouët. 12

13 The Roots of the Military-Political Crises in Côte d Ivoire group in the Ivorian political class. 1 This rewriting repositioned the groups so that, henceforth, the Akan are at the top: At the head of the new hierarchy are the Akans, with an explicit predominance of the Baoulés and the Anyi over the ethnic groups from the Lagoons; next comes the Mandé group; the Krou are at the bottom (Memel Foté, 1999:24). This is the origin of the consolidation of a dual ideology that the Baoulé ethnic group are aristocratic and have a natural propensity to rule others. Memel Foté demonstrates that there is absolutely no historical basis for this ideology. His refutation of Akan social and political supremacy is both formal and historical. However, skillfully orchestrated, the statement had a high return on investment and was undeniably effective socially and symbolically: The state-centred focus of the Akan militants does not appear to be well founded. In the first instance, the Akan state experience comes relatively late in the history of the West African region in general and in the pre-colonial history of Côte d Ivoire in particular... Secondly, the state in West Africa has no universality either in the Mandé world or in the Akan world... Thirdly, from the normative point of view, the Akan states, both in their expansionism and their domination of their subjects, have demonstrated the same types of violence and succeeded in the same types of endeavour as the Mandé and the Gur: they do not appear to present a model more humane in any way than the Mandé and Gur models. On the contrary, because they were polytheists up until colonisation, they never stopped practising human sacrifice, rites that were abolished in the Muslim Mandé world centuries ago. They share this practice with age-class societies. (Memel Foté, 1999:25) Thus, Memel Foté seeks to explain that it was only during the colonial period that new ways of managing society began to be learned. The same is true of the development of new modes of co-operation, such as trade unionism. The governmental experience of the PDCI under the leadership of Houphouët Boigny began with a successful instrumentalisation, limited but effective, of the colonial administration and a political union of the majority of the parties. Spurred on by this capacity to manipulate men and institutions, Houphouët Boigny established de facto authoritarianism by means of systematic resort to repressive laws, banning of opposition parties and many organs of expression, exiling trade-union militants, and imprisoning Sanwi secessionists. As Foté notes: At independence, which came too quickly in 1960, the authoritarian part-legal, part-political measures that the PDCI-RDA autonomous government had just set up, changed the nature of the tutelary state, which became a monolithic and despotic sovereign state. While they provided relative economic growth in Côte d Ivoire, these aspects were disproportionately accentuated. The Anyi people in Sanwi, accused of wanting to detach themselves from Côte d Ivoire to escape Baoulé hegemony, were subjected to a long martyrdom, the history of which has still to be written. Even more barbarous repression was experienced by Bété of the Guébié de Gagnoa sub-group, who were criminalised for being followers of Citizen Jean- 1. H. Memel Foté defines an activist group as a group that intends, by an effort of will, to act on public opinion and behaviour to obtain political results, and thus is in the social vanguard in its community. 13

14 Francis Akindès Christophe Kragbé Gnabé, who had founded a legal, but non-recognised, political party. From 1959 to 1967, three false plots, which were to be followed later by other plots in the army and the police, were the pretext to remove the most valued leaders of the PDCI-RDA, mainly Mandé and Krou in origin, and both young and old. Here again, this despotism and its obvious expansion bore the same defining mark, that of Félix Houphouët Boigny, who never concealed his Baoulé origins and the Akan culture, to which he constantly referred in political speeches. (Memel Foté, 1999:26) But, of all the above-mentioned aspects, the spontaneous anthropological argument based on racial prejudices is, of course, simplistic. It serves as a form of persuasion, as Memel Foté endeavours to prove, by at one and the same time establishing the subjective belief in Baoulé superiority as well as the pre-destined elitist vocation of this ethnic group to govern the state. According to Foté (1999), this anthropological argument defines the psychological attributes and the virtues specific to genuine and worthy rulers. But, over time, it delegitimises the pretensions of others to rule, by virtue of the character traits and the vices attributed to them. This negative anthropological description of otherness mainly applies to two ethnic groups that are considered as representative of the three ethnic groups that have already been disqualified : these are, firstly, the Dioula, the professional name for trader and a family name in the Kong Manding dialect, but used here as a popular and pejorative reference to all Mandé and Gur people from the north and, therefore, to all Muslims. Then come the Bété, an ethnic group, it is true, but above all, despite the relative diversity of regional sub-groups, the figure of absolute negativity. This negative characterisation, re-expressed in popular language and sometimes by way of humour, is also expressed in still clearer terms. Again, it is worth citing Foté s work at some length: The Dioula and the Bété are discriminated against by using dubious psychological arguments: they are not genuine, in the words of the ideologists that is, their reactions are unpredictable, they are not really to be trusted, and are unsuited to successfully dominating the Akan. Secondly, in ethnic relations, significant immorality traits are associated with this psychology. According to one person, the Dioula are lawless unbelievers and the Bété are violent women-chasers ; another says the Dioula are as malevolent as slaves; a third person states the class education which is characteristic of the civilised Akan is not apparent among the other two ethnic groups and their like. In the third instance, in the political relationship the claims of the Dioula and Bété constitute a danger to the state and nation: the Bété because of their cultural incompatibility with the presidential function; the Dioula for a strategic reason, given the fact that, in the last resort, they would work towards propagating and establishing Islam. These negative anthropological factors define in reverse the positive qualities considered desirable in the ideal political class of the Ivorian nation, the assumption being that these are to be found in the Akan alone, particularly among the most militant Baulé and Anyi, who were the spokespersons. To begin with, there are psychological qualities: the need to be a man of one s word, endowed with conviction, sincerity, and uprightness. Then there are moral qualities: the nobility and generosity of the free man, his spirit of peace and sexual moderation, all qualities which bear witness to a proper upbringing in the eyes of the Akan aristocracy. Finally, there are the philosophical and religious justifications of ethnic superiority. On 14

15 The Roots of the Military-Political Crises in Côte d Ivoire the one hand, there is the vocation to protect and to promote what is considered antagonistic to Islam, namely the Christian religion. On the other, the assumption that in this non-secular approach the protection of Christianity was the exclusive vocation of the Akan, not that of the Krou or Gur or even Mandé. No comparative survey has ever, even slightly, validated this falsely contrasted representation. (Memel Foté,1999) This construction of a positive representation of the self in opposition to others has contributed to the accumulation of a whole set of imaginary stories and psychosociological markers for social groups. These are naively conveyed in popular songs and ultimately act, in ethno-methodological terms, as an ordinary competence (Garfinkel, 2001), structuring the way in which the members of communities perceive one another. To this day, the force of these ethnic prejudices moulds the popular imagination and governs the relationship that the social collective imagination has with the political. In Akan, and particularly Baoulé circles, the psychologising of this spontaneous anthropology has maintained, and continues to maintain the political effectiveness of the myth regarding the race pre-destined to exercise power. This ranked and essentially political stratification of ethnic groups has structured the minds of the majority of the Akan, irrespective of their social category. Ultimately this Akan culture has organised the national symbols of power, as well as the sociological mechanisms to exercise it, according to its own norms. Its symbolic efficiency is also demonstrated through its strong internal structuring, which is well elucidated by Memel Foté. The myth of Akan superiority has simultaneously fulfilled a number of positive and negative functions. The positive functions are: unification; the re-invention of a common origin and a common identity; mobilisation; with a bloc attached to the PDCI by the guarantee of block voting and the votes required to preserve power; reintegration of those elements dispersed among opposition parties, through blandishments, such as promises of jobs and/or money, as well as veiled threats; and recruitment into the elite services. The negative functions are: separation; excluding the Lagoon peoples from the Akan group; systematically displaying their negative differences, and seldom, if ever, their positive differences; and limiting the real territory of Côte d Ivoire to its epicentre; and exclusion; sustaining an attitude of exclusion that goes beyond words, and leads to a clash between the excluders and those who feel excluded. Until the beginning of the 1980s, the euphoria of the period of economic growth, which was favourable to informal distribution and an individual s multiple access to political favours (Crook, 1989; 1990), enabled this myth to function almost openly. Once the economic recession became structural after , the physical exhaus- 15

16 Francis Akindès tion of the leading player undermined the basis of this socio-political construction, with its anthropological foundations. The paternalistic administration of this socio-cultural mosaic (ethnic groups and immigrant populations) has long rested on this mythical and ideological foundation, camouflaged behind the geopolitical mechanisms of unequal distribution of political favours. In this system of socio-political regulation, the foreigners, a silent minority, are not merely factors of production. While, through the migration of agricultural labour encouraged by a liberal policy of access to land (Zongo, 2001, Chauveau, 1995), migrants have steadily contributed to economic growth, in the socio-political format constructed by Houphouët Boigny they are also political instruments, acting at the same time as social buffers. On the political level, reliance on the votes of CEDEAO citizens (Communauté des Etats de l Afrique de l Ouest) to stay in power (Dozon, 1997:784) is an important indication of the instrumentalisation of foreigners for electoral ends. 1 This electoral support assured a plebiscite for Houphouët Boigny at a time when his political system was weakened by the crisis of public finances and by his illness. However, the massive presence in the political sphere of foreigners enabled a scapegoat rhetoric to emerge in a difficult economic situation and channelled resentment towards even poorer people, without challenging the system. It also enabled the construction of the political principle of misère de position (P. Bourdieu), relative poverty. This is intended as a rhetoric whereby the feeling of poverty is relativised by comparing the poor Ivorian with a mass of foreigners who are socially and economically inferior, thus raising the social status of the poorer nationals. The organisation of these three parameters has ensured the PDCI-RDA thirtynine years of control of national political life. But this politico-economic complex, which appeared to be politically stable, has been in crisis since the beginning of the 1990s, when, after the La Baule Francophone summit, the political system was forced, as in other countries, to democratise (Crook, 1997). 1. This initiative led to a controversy in the political class. The opposition accused PDCI of using foreigners, who had almost become hostages, as voting fodder in elections to maintain their hold on power. The opposition s hostility to the voting of foreigners contributed to the rise in xenophobia. 16

17 CHAPTER 2 Houphouetism Shows Signs of Wear and Tear under Democratisation With the return of a multiparty system, 1 the political sphere opened up. Political parties like the FPI and the PIT (Parti Ivoirien des Travailleurs), to mention the most important, legalised their participation in the political arena. FPI, after years underground, emerged into the open and was recognised. It could make political capital out of the votes of those excluded from the fruits of growth. At the same time, given the ethnicisation of political participation in Africa, the Bété origins of its leader Laurent Gbagbo made him the main focus for rallying the Bété, who were unhappy with the political exclusion that flowed from the myth of the Baoulé aristocracy. But in 1990, despite some success in recruiting Akyé and Akan in the Lagoon area, both ethnic groups relegated to the lower ranks of Akan aristocracy, the party was perceived to be a Bété party because of its leader s identity. The forcible process of democratisation begun here as in other countries in 1990 (Decalo, 1992; Akindès, 1996), after thirty years of single-party rule, exposed the social divisions of a society whose components (ethnic groups and immigrant populations) were poorly integrated. This phenomenon was further highlighted by the unfavourable economic situation, 2 which considerably eroded the foundations of the Houphouetist compromise, namely integration through economic factors. The economic policy that underpinned this construction suffered numerous blows from the outside world (declining prices for agricultural raw materials, increase in dollar exchange rate and the price of oil, rise in international interest rates); there was a significant downturn in the domestic saving and investment rates, which fell from 25% of GNP in 1980 to 4% of GNP in 1990 and 8% in Furthermore, public finances were no longer balanced, and there was excessive public borrowing in a context of excessive international liquidity, hence the explosion of the public debt from 196% of GNP in 1990 to 243% in The Ivorian economy, based on cocoa and coffee, whose prices were low at the time, and strangled by domestic debt, struggled with a rise in bankruptcies and redundancies. The devaluation of January 1994 stimulated the Ivorian economy, but its dividends were badly managed. The result was that the principal sub-regional economic 1. On the return to multipartism in Côte d Ivoire, refer to Diégou Bailly (1995). 2. We do not intend to discuss the different structural plans that considerably affected the political system. On the scope and consequences of these reforms, see the following excellent studies: Gouffern, 1982; Duruflé, 1988; Cogneau and Mesplé-Somps,

18 Francis Akindès pole, representing 40% of GNP, foundered economically (Cogneau, Mesple-Sombs et al., 2003). Increasing pressure from the regime s external backers, confronted with budgetary blunders arising from poorly managed administrative procedures for liberalisation and falling prices for its main exports, coffee and cocoa, accelerated the process. Denunciations of the corruption of the political class coincided with rising indices of pauperisation, such as youth unemployment in urban areas, multiple property conflicts, and the difficulties for households in making ends meet (Akindès, 2000). Tensions in Ivorian society were gradually rising. On the political level, social unease increased while the PDCI-RDA s regulatory capacity diminished as the political arena was forced to open up. Within ten years, we witnessed the emergence of sensitive issues that had been repressed or evaded during the political crisis preceding the elections that were hurriedly organised in Two points stand out: the question of political representation and the question of immigration in the new context of economic contraction. Confronting the issues: the political class and the criteria for political representation and legitimacy The death of Houphouët Boigny in 1993 triggered hostilities between rival political clans within the PDCI. Henri Konan Bédié, president of the National Assembly at the time, was invested with the highest office in accordance with the provisions of Article 10 of the constitution, after succession disputes that for several years had brought him into conflict with Alassane Dramane Ouattara, the then prime minister. In this political confusion, RDR emerged as a political party forged from a coalition of party militants who were increasingly dissatisfied with PDCI internal practices and capitalised on the demands of part of the northern élite in Côte d Ivoire to escape an Akan-centred state. These demands, set out in the Charte du Grand Nord that circulated from 1992, sought more significant participation of the northern populations in political life, a demand they felt justified in making given the imminent political exit of Houphouët Boigny, towards whom they had been prepared to be loyal. No longer accepting their position as camp-followers within the Akan-dominated PDCI-RDA, their project with the Charte du Grand Nord was to make their own entry into the political arena. The RDR, which capitalised on the resentment of both those disappointed with the PDCI and the northeners no longer prepared to be considered as second-class citizens, found in the person of the exprime minister, himself from the north, a leader capable of taking their ideals into the arena of political competition. Henceforth, the political landscape was dominated by three people, each of whom represented both a region and a political group in the eyes of the people: Henri Konan Bédié, heir to the myth of Akan aristocracy, with an electorate mainly concentrated in the centre, south, and southeast; Laurent Gbagbo, prophet of a rad- 18

19 The Roots of the Military-Political Crises in Côte d Ivoire ical break with Houphouetism and, for some, heir to the work of Kragbé Gnagbé, the rallying symbol of the Bété populations and a sizeable fringe of populations in the west who considered themselves to have been marginalised in the redistribution of the fruits of growth; and lastly, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, the candidate of the PDCI dissidents and in particular of the mainly Muslim people of the north. This political positioning in the north indicated the first stirrings of a federating religious mobilisation, the south being considered a natural home of the Christians and the north the stronghold of the Muslims. As the October 2000 elections approached, the PDCI, which had a majority in parliament, attempted to manipulate the institutions and rules of the political game in its favour, as had been the case in 1995 when Alassane Dramane Ouattara was prevented from running in the presidential elections because of an insufficient number of years of residency in the country. Caught between the PDCI and the RPR, the two political heavyweights, candidate Laurent Gbagbo sought alliances that would be the most politically advantageous for him. On the sociological level, the debate about Ivoirité dominated the political scene and accounted for the various positions adopted in relation to Houphouetism. The months that preceded the coup d état on 24 December 1999 were characterised by an ominously tense political atmosphere: an international arrest warrant was issued for Ouattara, the RDR leader, who was accused of forgery on the basis of doubts about his mixed and uncertain identity; some RDR militants were arrested and imprisoned; and, while the electoral lists were being updated, the Muslim people of the north complained of humiliating acts of police harassment targeted at them and of insidious challenges to their being part of the Ivorian nation. Through the expedient of nationality, the question of the full meaning of citizenship was posed, but the only political answer was the recurrent mobilisation of legitimate violence in a way that the people of the north felt was intended to frustrate them, and in a way that that served to stiffen identities. The military coup d état of 24 December 1999 ended the rule of Bédié and forced him into exile. This development was jubilantly welcomed by the people, because, given the poisonous political situation within the country, it was seen as an essential step to lowering tensions. It marked a point of no return in the people s expectations that a fresh compromise would be negotiated. The identity dimension in political clashes in Côte d Ivoire could no longer be ignored: the crisis of Houphouetism had reached its peak. All the social indicators called for the development of new and different regulatory measures. Furthermore, a new actor came on to the political stage, General Robert Gueï, former army chief of staff. He hailed from the west and became the head of the Comité National de Salut Public (CNSP) after the military coup d état. But once in power and after ten months of transition, he presented two quite different political images: Gueï 1, then Gueï 2. These images can only be fully understood in light of the Houphouetist parameters outlined above. This dual identity, 19

20 Francis Akindès after ten months in power, is an indication of the strength of the ethno-nationalist trend within the ongoing political changes. The positioning of each of the three parties (PDCI, FPI, RDR) and of the frontline political actors (including Gueï) in relation to Houphouetism is fundamental to the rest of our political analysis. In the heat of the succession disputes over the highest political office in 2000 and, in particular, in the wake of the advent to power of Bédié in 1993, we witness Houphouetism on trial, with, inevitably, a call for the development of a new political compromise. This trial took various forms some selective, some radical depending on the actors and groups of actors. Ivoirité under Bédié, or the selective function of an ideology Henri Konan Bédié, candidate to his own succession, introduced the concept of Ivoirité as a means of discrediting his main adversary in the eyes of the national public and of ensuring his own political survival. He re-opened the discussions initiated in 1994 by the opposition leader, Laurent Gbagbo, concerning the nationality of the prime minister, Alassane Dramane Ouattara, who later became the official candidate of the RDR. In the opinion of the PDCI, Ouattara was a Burkinabe. It was said that his non-ivorian identity could be confirmed by the fact of his holding high positions in international institutions as a national of Burkina Faso. An association was immediately made between uncontrolled immigration, particularly along the northern frontiers, the possession of false identity papers by nationals of Mali, Guinea, and Burkina Faso, who were culturally close to the populations of northern Côte d Ivoire, and the allegedly illegal claim by an immigrant to govern a host country. The frightening brand of Ivoirité mobilised during Bédié s rule was the first partial break with Houphouetism. At the same time as serving as an ideological rally call to the population against a political opponent, this version of Ivoirité enabled the Bédié regime, faced with public financing difficulties arising from a shrinking fiscal base, to theorise the selection of who had a right to the increasingly scarce national resources. On two grounds, this defensive rhetoric was the first break with the Houphouetist compromise as a mode of dealing with social diversity: first, the explicit theorisation of Ivoirité broke with the informality of political practices, which had been effective till then because they were unwritten; second, the systematisation of mechanisms of political exclusion based on an imaginary line between true Ivorians, intermittent Ivorians, and Ivorians of convenience led to polarisations of identity, which in turn were the origin of various conflictual forms of statement of identity. The country s sudden lurch towards difference which Houphouët Boigny had maintained but in the guise of difference as community enrichment was linked to his successor s assertion of his legitimacy through a 20